Myanmar’s Rohingya Genocide

ICC referral: Need of the hour

As hopes for an early, voluntary, safe and dignified repatriation of the Rohingya refugees to a protected homeland in Arakan fade, as Myanmar authorities persist in a “systematic,” lower-intensity persecution and violence in northern Arakan, and as new batches of expelled Rohingyas continue to cross the border into Bangladesh, the demand for bringing the perpetrators of the heinous crime to justice, including State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and her military cohorts, gains traction.

On Friday, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations human rights chief, called for allegations of atrocities committed against the Rohingyas to be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for prosecution. Earlier, he informed the Human Rights Council that he strongly suspected that “acts of genocide” might have taken place against Rohingyas in Rakhine since August last year. He construed reports of bulldozing of alleged mass graves as a “deliberate attempt by the authorities to destroy evidence of potential international crimes, including possible crimes against humanity.” The rights chief urged UN General Assembly to establish a new independent mechanism to expedite criminal proceedings in courts against those responsible.

Earlier, Prof. Yanghee Lee, the UN’s human rights envoy to Myanmar, expressed the view that there were grounds for bringing the country’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, before an international tribunal for failing to intervene in the “clearance operation” the military had launched in Arakan following alleged militant attacks on several police posts and army base on August 25, 2017.

In another move, three female Nobel peace laureates urged Bangladesh, the UN and other state parties to refer Myanmar military and other perpetrators to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the “genocide” against the Rohingyas. “Alternatively, the ICC prosecutor should open an independent investigation into the crimes against humanity and genocide perpetrated in Rakhine state,” they observed, after visiting Rohingya refugee sites in Bangladesh. One of the three laureates and an eminent legal expert, Shirin Ebadi, stated that as Myanmar was not a state party to the Rome Statute, the UN Security Council can recognise Myanmar’s crimes against humanity and then refer that to the ICC. “We want this case to be discussed at the UN Security Council and there is sufficient evidence for this to take place,” she asserted.

Denouncing the Myanmar army’s “bald-faced lie” against the “mountains of evidence,” Phil Robertson of the Human Rights Watch noted that “they’ve been covering up their human rights atrocities for decades.” Referring to absurd claims of the Myanmar military leadership, Robertson observed, “Statements like these indicate why the international community must prioritise hauling Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and other Burmese military commanders up in the international criminal court to stand trial for the crimes against humanity they’ve ordered or committed.”Read more ›

Show Rohingya women that we care

By Ashley Judd Updated 0849 GMT (1649 HKT) March 15, 2018

Source: CNN

Ashley Judd visits Rohingya refugees 05:53

Ashley Judd is a US actress and activist. She is a Goodwill Ambassador for UNFPA, the United Nations reproductive health and rights agency. The opinions in this article belong to the author.

(CNN) The Kutupalong refugee camp is situated in Cox’s Bazar, the most southeastern part of Bangladesh, along its border with Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

Six months ago, the area was a pristine jungle preserve. Now it is home to more than a half million Rohingya Muslim refugees, who since August have fled rape, torture and murder at the hands of the Myanmar armed forces.

They are, quite rightly, too terrified to return to Myanmar, but they are not allowed to move on, so they sit in a purgatorial limbo.

A heaving, sprawling settlement is fashioned from tarps and bamboo, slapped haphazardly on dusty mud terraces and made up of nearly a million traumatized, persecuted people.

I am honoured to present today my fourth report to this Council in the year of the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Minister U Kyaw Tin reminded us that Burma, as it was then called, was among the first nations to vote in favour of the Declaration when it was adopted by the General Assembly on 10 December 1948. I am also reminded, sadly, that when the UDHR was adopted it was when the world first said “never again”.

I am presenting my report without having access to Myanmar for the first time. I used to have the privilege of saying that I am the only Special Rapporteur on Myanmar to have been allowed into the country each time I requested a visit, no matter how fraught with obstacles. During my last few visits, I saw that the current civilian-led Government had been adopting tactics of the military past; it is rather ironic that I was informed last December of that Government’s decision to no longer cooperate with me.

Mr. President,

When I assumed my mandate in 2014, I vowed to discharge it in fairness and with impartiality. In all my reports, I have attempted to shed light on the plight of several communities, not just one; and I have tried to engage the Government in an open and constructive way. This includes on benchmarks which this Council mandated me to arrive at jointly with the Government to track progress and prioritize areas for technical assistance and capacity-building. Despite my efforts to remain impartial, I am now declared unwelcome in Myanmar, accused of being unfair and biased. I am hopeful that Myanmar will revisit their decision and grant me access in July. In the event that they continue not to cooperate with me, I will seek to travel to India and China in preparation of my report to the General Assembly. Read more ›

UN: Rohingya atrocities ‘bear hallmarks of genocide’

WRITER:13 Mar 2018 at 00:20 317 view e-documents

Yanghee Lee: UN special rapporteur to Myanmar says the Suu Kyi government should be held accountable for their treatment of the Rohingya. (File photo)

GENEVA: A top UN rights expert claimed Monday that the crackdown on Myanmar’s Rohingya minority bears “the hallmarks of genocide” and insisted the government should be held accountable. Myanmar called for her immediate firing and replacement.

Nearly 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled northern Rakhine state to Bangladesh since Myanmar launched a brutal crackdown on insurgents six months ago amid accounts of arson, murder and rape at the hands of soldiers and vigilante mobs in the mainly Buddhist country.

Myanmar has vehemently denied US and UN allegations of ethnic cleansing, insisting it was responding to attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army in late August. But on Monday, UN special rapporteur to Myanmar Yanghee Lee suggested that term was not strong enough.

“I am becoming more convinced that crimes committed… bear the hallmarks of genocide, and call in the strongest terms for accountability,” she told the UN Human Rights Council. The South Korean academic, who has been barred from visiting Myanmar, voiced alarm at “credible reports” of widespread indiscriminate killings, including by burning people alive. Read more ›

UN official convinced of Myanmar Rohingya ‘genocide’

(CNN) A senior United Nations official investigating Myanmar’s ongoing crackdown against the Rohingya says she is increasingly convinced it may amount to genocide.

More than 680,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees have fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh since August 2017, bringing with them stories of mass murder and destruction at the hands of the country’s military.

“I am becoming more convinced that the crimes committed following 9 October 2016 and 25 August 2017 bear the hallmarks of genocide and call in the strongest terms for accountability,” said Yanghee Lee, the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar.

Lee, who was speaking to the UN’s Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, also called for a body to be set up at Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, where most Rohingya have sought refuge, to compile evidence of human rights abuses in Myanmar.

She said its “aim would be to facilitate impartial, fair and independent international criminal proceedings in national or international courts or tribunals.” CNN contacted Myanmar’s government for comment but didn’t receive an immediate response. Read more ›

Noble laureates break down in tears hearing stories of Rohingyas

Star Online Report

Two female Nobel Peace Prize laureates today broke down in tears after hearing the stories of brutalities and atrocities carried out on Rohingyas by Myanmar army in Rakhine.

Nobel Peace Laureates Mairead Maguire and Tawakkol Karman could not hold their tears when Rohingya people were sharing their nightmares of the atrocities at Rohingya camp in Ukhia upazila of Cox’s Bazar.

In emotion-chocked voices, both the female Nobel Peace laureates blamed Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi for her silent role in stopping the brutality on the Rohinya people and their children. Mairead Maguire said the people who had to flee their villages bear the stories of rape, murder and killing of their families and little children those taken out of the arms of their mothers and were slaughtered.

“We appeal to Aung San Suu Kyi to think about the little children who have been pulled out of their mothers’ arms as you yourself (Suu Kyi) a mother,” they said adding that Suu Kyi cannot deny Rohingyas’ right to live by carrying out massacre and burning their villages.

“This is a slaughter of the innocence Rohingyas people,” Mairead Maguire claimed. She also criticised the Myanmar government and military for hatching a policy to commit genocide against the Rohingya people for ethnic cleansing.

“We cannot allow genocide. The world must act against it. This is a case of International Court of Justice. Barma must be taken to it,” she warned. Read more ›

Staff Correspondent

The three female Nobel Peace laureates have urged Bangladesh, the UN and other state parties to refer Myanmar military and other perpetrators to the International Criminal Court for the “genocide” against the Rohingyas.

“Alternatively, the ICC prosecutor should open an independent investigation into the crimes against humanity and genocide perpetrated in Rakhine state,” they said in a statement following their three-day visit to the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.

“If today we turn a blind eye to the genocide against the Rohingya people, be sure that in the future there will be many similar acts of genocide against the Muslims,” Nobel Peace Prize winner from Iran Shirin Ebadi said at a press conference in the city’s Pan Pacific Sonargaon hotel yesterday.

Tawakkol Karman of Yemen, Mairead Maguire of Northern Ireland and Shirin Ebadi — who all played revolutionary roles in establishing human rights in their native countries and beyond — visited the Rohingya camps and other refugees living in the no-man’s land near Bandarban’s Ghundhum to assess the crisis on the ground.

During the visit organised by the Nobel Women’s Initiative, a platform of six Nobel Peace laureates, and Bangladesh’s women rights organisation Naripokkho, the trio talked to over 100 Rohingya women and children.

“All the women we met were raped. Most of the children that we met fled to Bangladesh without families. Their fathers and mothers were killed and their villages burnt,” Tawakkol Karman said at the press conference. The Myanmar soldiers raped women in front of their children and husbands, while babies were thrown to the fire, she said, adding that the violent acts by the Myanmar army were “nothing but genocide”.

Nearly 700,000 Rohingyas have fled atrocities in Myanmar and entered Bangladesh since late August last year, creating the world’s fastest growing refugee crisis. The UN discussed the crisis several times since September, but could take no concrete action to address it due to objections from China and Russia. Read more ›